Ed O'Brien says there is no King of Limbs part two

Ed O'Brien has told BBC 6 Music that there is no second King of Limbs record waiting to come out. There are songs that we have started, that we never finished, but there's not like seven or eight finished songs waiting in the wings to be released now, or in the autumn.²

He was answering a theory that took hold within days of the album's release in February. Orders for The King of Limbs were numbered TKOL1, which read like the first of two, and the last track is called “Separator”, taken as the line between two releases. An eight-track record is short for Radiohead, and songs fans had heard about were missing from it. Some fans heard the closing words of “Separator” as a sign the record was not over, and a fan-made site, TheKingOfLimbsPart2.com, gathered the case.

O'Brien said “The Butcher” comes from the King of Limbs sessions, and “Supercollider” was recorded in that period and finished after the album came out. Rolling Stone reports that he called them the only completed outtakes. Both are on a limited vinyl single for Record Store Day on Saturday 16 April.

When we start a new record, we tend to start afresh. It's kind of an evolutionary thing – only the fittest survive.

Ed O'Brien¹